1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for producing groups of contact elements for 90.degree.-angle plug connectors by the press-in or impression technique, in which the contact elements, in a stamping device, are constructed on a plug side with a contact region and on a terminal side with a terminal region having a press-in or impression segment extending at right angles to the plugging direction and being joined to the contact region through connecting struts.
German Utility Model DE-GM 90 13 007 discloses a plug connector that is formed by a main body of insulating material, acting as a contact strip, and an additional body of insulating material carrying contact elements. It is surrounded by a sheet-metal covering, and is secured to a printed wiring board by the press-in or impression technique. Each of the contact elements is disposed one above the other in a gap and provided on the plug side with a contact region having a contact spring and on the terminal side with a terminal region extending at right angles to the plugging direction. The latter region has a press-in or impression pin and is joined to the contact region through connecting struts. Such contact elements can be made in a stamping device.
German Published, Non-Prosecuted Application DE 40 40 551 A discloses a connector configuration with a number of individual sub-configurations of terminals that are parallel to one another. The sub-configurations are insulating carriers of the contact elements that protrude with plug regions thereof into housing modules.
The contact elements are constructed with a resiliently yielding segment in the terminal region thereof protruding out of the sub-configurations of terminals at right angles to the plugging direction. The terminal region and the plug region of the contact elements are joined together through connecting struts. The contact elements are disposed one above the other and are produced as a group by stamping of a terminal conductor frame. As is quite usual, in the known plug connectors, four or five contact elements that are disposed vertically one above the other in one column each form one group, in which each contact region of a contact element is fixedly associated with a certain terminal region and is always joined to that terminal region through the applicable connecting strut. Nevertheless, there are applications of plug connectors in which fewer contacts are needed, or greater contact spacings are desired. In such cases, a plug connector is then not equipped with five rows of contacts, for instance, but is only partially equipped, for instance with only three rows of contacts. In the known plug connectors with contact elements in four or five rows, that means that with a group of five contact elements disposed in one column, for instance, the contact and terminal regions of the unneeded contacts, for instance contacts 2 and 4, are removed. However, since the other contacts that are needed or desired have contact and terminal regions being fixedly associated with one another, which in such an example are contacts 1, 3 and 5, the plug connector requires the same amount of installation space on a printed wiring board as a plug connector that is fully equipped with five rows, for instance, despite being only partially equipped. When a plug connector that is constructed for five rows of contacts, for instance, is only partially equipped, for instance with only three rows of contacts, then if the space required on the printed wiring board is to be reduced, either new contact elements, or contact elements with new connections, are needed.
Until now, different connections have been made by different stamping and bending operations.